When Both Are Gone
by Kyre1
Summary: Up to Ch 4!!!! Sometime after SM, odd papers find their way into influential hands. The start and perhaps the end of the story of a strange pacifist. Gah!!! wrong format!!!!!!! CH4 is fixed now, sorry 'bout that!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer and other unnecessary things:  I own neither Jager, Dominique nor 'anyone' that shares a name with a character of AAR, nor do I own this world in which my writings take place.  That said, I believe I am permitted to continue.  Please do not hesitate to review for I would greatly appreciate feedback.  This is my first 'story' here.  I only ask that no one steal any of the characters that I hesitantly call my own without permission, though perhaps there is only one of these in this story and she is nameless.  I hope, at the very least, that this is enjoyed.  

~Kyre

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~

~When Both Are Gone~

It was a foggy, overcast morning in October, and all were surprised when the sun peaked over the horizon of gentle hills.  Who knew why it even bothered on a day that threatened rain.  It had been a long night for many, including the woman who was just returning home.  She was bruised and bloody, but _thank God_, her hatred was still intact, for whatever would the world do without the simple, malignant loathing that lived in the heart of said woman, one Dominique Vida.  As she was a meticulous woman, in that nothing escaped her attention, Ms. Vida noticed the white sheet of paper on her porch immediately.  It seemed harmless enough, almost careless, as if it has arrived there by mistake, delivered by the chaotic wind.  Dominique looked about her suspiciously, but found the world much as she left it a moment ago.  

Silent and Still.  

Satisfied that the deliverer was gone, she bent over to pick the paper up.  She straitened and took it inside, shutting, locking, and bolting the door behind her.  There was no fire blazing in the hearth.  Adianna was still in Las Angeles, tracking Kaleo as she had been this past week.

The house was cold.

Dominique sat herself upon a kitchen stool and grabbed a large, red apple as she began to read.  The apple was crisp and clean, satisfying the hunger she felt after killing.  The paper was not as crisp, it was slightly curved, as if put through an old typewriter, as it had been.  

On the page was a simple poem; two neat columns, in harsh black ink on blindingly white paper.  She read:

~I watch their war

With silent eyes

And from my place

Voice soundless cries

And deaf, their ears

Ignore my calls

For time has built 

Them steady walls

From on the ground

I make my pleas

But they don't see

Me on my knees

The bloom and thorn 

They battle on

What of the stem 

When both are gone?

Light, the blossom

She condescends

For Righteousness

But to what ends?

The bloodied, Dark

Laced with deceit

Still fights the day

But don't they meet?

And when their fight

Has lasted years

The world is soaked

Both blood and tears

When warriors 

Of each lie dead

Both 'Black' and 'White'

In earthly bed

What of the dusk

And of the dawn?

What of the gray 

When both are gone?

Left with pieces

A shattered land

Where fear and pain

Come hand-in-hand

Please rethink your

Resolution

As you write our

Execution

You hold us all

Upon your palms

For all our lives,

Let go your qualms!

When Night and Day

Are  fight engrossed

It's dusk and dawn

Who feel it most

When Black and White

They misbehave

It's gray that's sent

Unto the grave~

Her face tightened, as if the apple had turned suddenly sour.  With both disgust and contempt upon her features, Dominique crumpled the paper viciously and threw it into the empty fireplace.  She stood, and leaving the apple half eaten on the counter, headed up to bed.

Funny how her sleep habits had changed over the years past.

The sun was slowly setting that evening, the same day, as it has often done.  It had written over the gray clouds in scarlet and crimson, a show of great calligraphy.  

It was then that Jager chose to step out of Las Noches.  His eyes narrowed as the lasts spears of light attempted to penetrate them.  Those black pits of his countenance adjusted quickly, and soon the world was clear to him.  

He blinked.

The street was filled with paper.  No, that was an exaggeration.  There was a small trail of these slightly curved white sheets that followed the road.  Some had blown farther, into the few shops and against curtained or boarded windows.  One landed unceremoniously upon his left foot.  He picked it up and scanned it, read it, then read it again.  This didn't take long.  After hundreds of years, he read quite fast.  He let the paper drop as a look of amusement crossed his face.  His eyes were alight with it, and he laughed softly to himself.  He set off in pursuit, following the trail left for him.

It was not long before he discovered their source.  Around a few corners and down a few blocks he found her, a stack of bent papers in her left hand.  She would walk a few steps, then release one of the sheets over her shoulder with her right hand.  She did not stop moving, but her pace was unhurried.  

She was just a child in Jager's eyes, not yet two decades old.  He stopped to watch her for a moment.  As he stood in silent amusement, two shadows approached the stranger.  They were fledglings both, and weak at that.

"Quite a mess you've made, little girl," said the first in hissing tones.  He took down the hood of the ash colored jacket she was wearing to get a better look at her, or perhaps to make her neck more accessible.  He revealed some strait, long, light brown hair in doing so.  She paid them no mind, simply continued passing the papers over her shoulder, walking steadily.  The second fledgling grabbed her left arm, halting her progress. 

"What shall we do with this disturber of the peace?"  He asked his companion, his expression smug.  She still was not fazed.  She switched the papers to her other hand, and they continued to fall past her shoulder; many to be caught in the breeze and blown further down the street.  Irritated at the child's lack of response, the second vampire used her arm to fling her into the side of the nearest building.  

She was quick then, moving her arms to protect her head from the impact.  There was a sickening crack as she hit the brick wall, and the smell of blood lightly filled the air.  The two tormenters laughed as she slid down the building, clearly in pain but absolutely silent.

Jager moved then, quietly drawing closer to the three.  The younger of his kind must have felt his approach, the power of his aura, for they quickly flickered out like candle flames, surrendering their prey to the stronger hunter.  They would not have gone far, perhaps they were watching.  He didn't much care. 

 He was standing in front of her then, watching her slumped form.  She was mayhap 17, and completely forgettable.  She was neither beautiful, nor ugly; neither skinny, nor obese, her hair was an ordinary shade of brown, and her eyes, he could see them now, for she was staring up at him tiredly, were a washed out mix of blue, green, and gray.  Her aura was weak and completely human.  

Jager had yet to feed that night and his flesh was the same color as the bone jutting out of her arm.

But he had control.

"You are a fool," he commented lightly, amusement still apparent in his expression.

She blinked at him, then sat up straighter before she struggled to stand.  Jager offered no assistance.

"I never claimed otherwise," she said, voice hoarse.

Jager wondered if the damaged sound was from too much speech or the lack of such.  He supposed he could assume the later.  He considered her, head tilted as bird would, or a cat for that matter.  She was on her feet now, breathing hard, arm bleeding, and the blood covered her remaining sheets.  Her eyes were tired, almost old.  They took him in warily, but without terror.  

He turned his back to her.

"They'll be back soon," he advised as he walked away from her.  Jager was halfway down the block before he disappeared. 

The girl staggered away from the wall, away from New Mayhem.

With her good arm she tossed the remaining papers away from her.  They fluttered, bloodstained, in the wind as she melted into the night.

"When Night and Day

Are  fight engrossed

It's dusk and dawn

Who feel it most

When Black and White

They misbehave

It's gray that's sent

Unto the grave

What of the dusk

And of the dawn?

What of the gray 

When both are gone?"


	2. A Lesson in Time

Hola, Salve, and Ho  Reader:

This is my second piece, second chapter.  I think, the second of five, but we shall see about that.  My first bit was written in a spirit of humor, but the second?  Well, you shall see.  

I must say, after my first reviews I was practically bouncing off the walls with giddiness, happiness, and even, if I may say it, pride.  While this is my first fanfic, I write a lot.  As things stand, however, I share very little of it.  To get such a positive response, even from a few people, is very…what?  Nice? Encouraging? Thanks, anyway.  If in the course of reading, any person has a question, email me.   I'll email back and try to answer it the best I can.  *Laugh* Why ever do I paint myself this way?

Please review.

**The nameless are mine, the rest are not**

~KYRE

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~

II.  A Lesson in Time

Here I am again.  

Another chapter

In the story

But 

To whom do I belong?

I am merely a part, 

I know

But part of what?

Am I the disappointing ending?

Like the flesh of the dead, the wind wrapped around the skeletal trees.

It was now November, and the world had just finished dying.  As such, it was only cold enough to be a new corpse.  

It was darker earlier now, which Risika liked.  As of late, the daylight was becoming more difficult to stomach; a disadvantage of age and a cost of power.  In this era  she had found herself falling into deeper and deeper sleep, devoid not only dreams, but now memories as well.  

It was so cold.

Not the chill of the skin or bone that touched the living but a consuming winter of the soul.

The passion of her once sharp and vengeful spirit was embittered in it, buried, like her body wasn't.

She was quite the cynic these days.

It was a Saturday night, and the Full Beaver Moon was managing to slip through the tinted windows of Las Noches.  Who know how it could do what sunlight could never accomplish.  It was merely a shadow of power, after all, a weak, gray note in the symphony of the cosmos.  

Yet

Somehow it was capable of cutting as a knife, sharp as silver in her eyes.  

Risika looked away.

The crowd was thin, the people empty, the room half full.  

She was sitting at the bar, spinning a bottle of dark glass slowly when he entered.  Dark haired, swaggering, as if drunk, silhouetted by a dry aura, he came.  He had not the grace of her people, but he was of her kin.  

A stranger here.  

He took a black bottle and sat himself beside the Ageless.  He did not open it.  

Risika turned herself away from him and the window.  As the moon whispered to her of pain, so did he:

"What does the future hold?"  He asked her hoarsely.  

Time stopped to embrace the two of them.  The rest, the rest of everything, didn't matter; Not then, not to them

"Nothing.  She has no arms."  The words came out curt, a warning.  She would not suffer herself to speak with ones like him.  It was as if she knew what he was before he himself could find the name.

"We cannot continue as we are. We are our own Fenris."  His words should have been impassioned, yet they were strained, as if overused; tense, like his shoulders.  He was like so many of so few.

She whipped around to face him, his tired and demanding eyes.  

"There will never be another way," she said, dismissing the moment, the man, the matter, and the moon.

There was a pause.

Then.

He slammed his bottle straight down on the counter;

One quick motion.

It condensed.

Glass sprayed.

The bottle was empty.

Time resumed, but the people did not.

He faced their eyes and their silence as he left, shadowed coat trailing behind.

And words:

"Sic transit gloria mundi."

He was gone.

Enough of deaf ears, dear reader.  The quest is hopeless, yet the dream is real.  Who are the dreamers?


	3. Hope, But One Lost Fool

Late, a cold December night.  For my sluggishness, I apologize.  So little occupies too quickly.  Chapter Three.  Three is a good number.  I apologize also for the speed of my last chapter.  It lost something as Ms. Greenshadow so aptly saw.  Please forgive me.  Now, again, I own so few, but gradually those I do shall accept names.  I claim only Karah and Erden.

Thank you all who found time to review, I cannot begin to describe my appreciation.

Shorter, this one, but it seemed right.

~Kyre 

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III.  Hope, But One Lost Fool

Hope, but one lost fool

Alone and tearful as despair

The cold was piercing, could so easily touch even the strongest of hearts.  The bitterest of Januarys, the most arctic midnight, and the most acute pain she had ever felt.  It should not have come as such a surprise. So many winters had she endured…yet so few years.  The icy breath of emptiness slid along her spine, seeped slowly down her arms.  

Their apathy frightened her, appalled her, and most dangerously, threatened to numb her.  How much longer could she feel their sting with out gaining still deeper scars?

            Despite the frigid wind, she sat outside.  There was a bench of gray wood, under a barren tree.  From there she could see many smoking chimneys, a light glow through thin curtains in high windows.  Cozy perhaps, but not to one outside.  More than ever she felt like a stranger.  Why couldn't she accept the world?  

            The tears came so quickly when she was alone.

            The wind picked up, blowing the last leaves across the dirt path that led to her solitude.  She watched them, listened to them.  _Look how easy it is to be blown along_, they whispered to her.  _Look how easy it is to let go._

            She let herself get caught up for a moment, lulled by that gentle voice…but then strong hands placed themselves tenderly upon her shoulders.  They steadied her, held her in place.  

            "Karah…don't listen to them…they're dead, after all," his voice was not as soft, not as luring, but she knew it, and even in its tired, strained rasp, it held comfort.  His hands were cold, however.  She shuddered and he released her so that he might sit beside her on the bench.  With pale hands he wiped away her tears, brushed her simple brown hair out of her eyes.  "Hypothermia is not the best way to leave this world," he commented.

            She turned, to face his black stare more directly.  "Nor is it the worst."

            He reached out to comfort her, but she pulled away.

            "I'm lost, Erden."

            He stiffened slightly.  "As are we all, is such times, you can't expect-"

            "-No!" Her voice was desperate "…I mean, really lost..." She trailed off, her eyes growing dim.  "How can I speak to them when I don't know myself anymore?  I feel empty…" Her voice wavered, and the weakness angered her.  "I'm standing in the middle of a dark room full of people.  I'm screaming and no one even turns…" She looked away from him.  "Erden...I can't do it anymore…" Her tone grew softly somber.  "It's killing me."

            He closed his eyes.  "You act as if you're alone, as if you've accomplished nothing."  He opened them again, black pits of such intensity.  "You saved me, didn't you?"  

            She looked up at him.

            "There's always hope," he told her.  She used to be the one to say so.  It pained him to have to remind her.  What happened to the light, the fearlessness?  

            She smiled painfully.  "Walk with me?"  

They both stood, and slowly took the dark, lightly wooded path.

~


	4. Brighter's Path

~CH 4…wow…well, I hope some of you are still with me.  I Thank you all again for reading and reviewing thus far.  I veryveryvery much appreciate it.  Anywho, here it is, here we go, a quick…or not… trip to the past.

Forever the fool,

~Kyre~

Disclaimer:  This world is not mine.  It is the sole property of Amilia Atwater-Rhodes =)

~

~

IV:  Brighter's Path

Away we go, on Brighter's Path,

Along the shallow field,

Where happiness falls down with rain

And Joy, the flowers yield

Where is success, in breathing found,

Rewarding cries and dues,

They throw about, glad, left behind,

And overall abuse

Inside this place, a happy note,

In every cord is made,

For if the music's loud enough

They can forget the shade

And go about, blind, light of eye,

Turn as the shadows pass

Ghosts whispering their like demise

To these deaf ears in mass.

It was a dry, summer evening of early August three years previous, and the house shuddered under the tension that had bled into it. Like bitter sweat, the hatred stuck to the walls and flowed out of every pore in the stucco.  Karah watched the stale white divider as if she expected it to speak.  There was no eagerness in her face however, only dry acceptance of the dull throb coming from the next room.  Who knew 'I statements' could include so many four letter words?  She pondered this, and many more things than could be guessed in her blank stare, as she ran her fork across the mostly empty plate on an even emptier table.  There was a crack down the middle (of the table, perhaps the girl) that seemed to have grown larger that evening.  

Funny.  

Scientists spoke of concerts, headphones, and church bells as being detrimental to hearing, yet none, it seemed, had explored the power of shouting.  What better tool to deafen a teenager than the rage soaked screams of the parents?  Though, it needed not be a yell.  One softly spoken word of loathing was enough to shatter a small world and bring it under a tearing silence.

It was a still torment.  Her stomach was falling, her chest locking, her head pounding, her soul ripping, her eyes filling, yet for all this, she appeared normal enough.  The red flag was so small, a slight crease between her eyebrows.  The façade was an art form that many of her age had mastered but for in which few took pride.  Who wanted, after all, to recognize the lie they lived?  She was choking on bile, drowning in stifled breaths, yet to all the world appeared listlessly playing with the last scraps of a heartless dinner, elbow placed rebelliously on the table, head resting sideways in her hand.  

The fork clattered dejectedly upon the plate as she dropped it, voicing its own selfish concerns.  She got up suddenly, with less control then she would have liked, and walked out of the dinning room, up the indifferent stairs and down the following hall to her bedroom.  

It was white mostly, unoriginal but comfortable enough.  There were a few scattered paintings on the walls, some sketches, a handful of photographs and a Van Gough calendar.  It reminded Karah of a sitcom room, simple and sterile.  It was as if she was watching herself in a space untouched, unlived in.

She let herself fall, slower than usual, to land on the bed.  It formed around her, not wanting to get too close.  Hostile.  There was something pulsing, red.

She turned her head slightly, catching the dull throb of her answering machine.  It was one of the oldest devices ever to be graced by the sun's rays, she was certain of it.  The casing was a dull gray plastic, the same shade that one could see on old beta cassette players or objects just beyond memory's reach.

01-----01-----01-----01

            She shifted, slowing reaching to press 'play.'  A voice greeted her, not one that seemed particularly happy to speak to the girl, but then again, Karah didn't really care for the answering machine's stiff feminine tone either.  It reminded her of too many.

YOU HAVE----ONE----NEW MESSEGE AND---ZERO---OLD MESSEGES

BEEEEEEEEEEP

            The box began to crackle and there was a pause, an intake of a quick, excited breath.  The happy and hardly familiar voice began to blare, like an unwelcome foghorn in the paws of a mouse.

HEY KARAH IT'S JANE, GOD, I WISH I COULD TALK TO YOU….PICK UP THE PHONE!  OH WELL, I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANKS, ME AND NATE ARE TALKING AGAIN.  HE SAID WHAT YOU SAID MADE A LOT OF SENSE, SO, YA THANKS FOR WHATEVER YOU SAID-

The voice paused to laugh, creating an ironic disharmony with the shouts that wafted up from the kitchen.

-ANYWAY, SOMETIMES I THINK YOU CAN SOLVE ANYTHING, YOU REALLY KNOW—

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Her twenty seconds were up and painfully too late.  Karah reached over to slap the 'delete' button, a prelude to burying her head under a pillow.

            Life could be too bitter sometimes, too ironic.  Perhaps she was merely too susceptible to existence.  Only, that didn't sound right.  How could one be vulnerable to living?

            She sighed quietly and sat up (for which the bed was much relieved).

            Some air, she decided, was all she needed.  The problem with this lay in that to reach the front door, she would have to pass the kitchen, and, at this point, she would not do so for any price presented her.  So, feeling restless, reckless (and an unrecognized/unremembered third adjective starting with the letter 'r') she threw open the window and gazed below.  Just as she suspected, there lay the convenient trellis her mother had placed last month.  She drew away from the pane to scoop up her charcoal sweatshirt that had been resting peacefully, curled on the carpet.  She donned it quickly, leaving little time for her nerve to escape her, before lowering herself out the window.  

She let her feet catch the trellis, with the hopes that it might aid her by letting her climb down.  However, it seemed the garden ornament had betrayed her.  She had barely descended a few feet before the trellis let out a moan, then vindictively snapped beneath her in quick succession, like so many staggered teeth of a separating zipper.  

She landed in a loud pile of sweet potato vine and splinted wood, the small, white blossoms of the plant clinging to her clothes, laced in her hair.

Contrary to popular belief, trellises are not made with escaping teenagers in mind.

Apparently, her fall had been sufficiently smothered by the din from the house.  Karah brushed herself off as she got up, removing as many of the pesky flowers as she could.  She looked down the street tentatively.  The sun had set only a few moments before, leaving all she surveyed basking in the glorious twilight.  Her mood was so quickly improved, it seemed almost strange.  Granted, Karah was a crepuscular creature to the core, but, even so, it was more than being immersed in her element.  The blanket of stress that her house trapped over her had been lifted, bringing with it a sense of freedom she rarely felt.  The contrast was so defined, like being taken from a steaming pot and dropped into a vat of ice water.  She even managed a smile.

She started off down the block at a walk, a steady and unhurried pace, taking in all she could of the late-summer dusk.  She passed a gray bench, but paused, momentarily stunned by the tree beside it.  It was a swamp maple in full, crimson glory.  The leaves were so vibrantly red, they appeared unnatural, though blessed or cursed she could not say.  Eventually, she continued on, heading towards the park.   

Nightingale Park was created long before Karah was born.  It had stood for longer than her house, her block, and most of what filled the quaint New England town.  It smelled old.  The area was large, many square acres of well kept grass, elm and ash.  Small dirt paths ran through the place like veins.  

She entered from the east side, and heading down the main trail, marked by a small, wooden sign that announced proudly that the girl was walking along 'Nightingale Way.'  It was moderately empty by now (as most respectable places were come sun down), but she could still see stragglers crossing in shadow on their respective routes.  They oddly reminded her of phantoms; trying to return to places they'd forgotten.

The small road seemed to unwind before her feet, carrying her farther than she'd gone in years.  It was calling quietly, encouraging her, almost.  It also helped that, subconsciously, she had no desire to return home, not yet.  Even the dark waited longer than usual to descend, feeling no need to remind her of the time.  It was holding its breath.  Finally, It could no longer keep itself in, and in a whoosh of release, full night burst forth, encompassing the girl.

She stopped.  That was her signal to go home, or it would have been, had something not caught her eye.  She had halted right in front of a fork in her way, of which she had already passed many that formed trails diverging from the main road.  This one, though, felt different.  She looked down and read the wooded sign: 'Brighter's Path'

Afterwards, she would not have been able to explain what made her choose to continue down this second road.  Perhaps it was the irony of traveling down 'Brighter's Path' at night, or the insistent tug in her chest that wanted to stay as far away from home as she could manage.  Perhaps it was something more.  

All that didn't much matter, not really.  She took the path, and that was everything. 

(*wipes brow*  a bit longer than usual…..So, what do you think?  Digame, por favor)


End file.
